The Tight Tan Slacks of Dezso Ban: Optimal Squat Depth in the Power Clean

The prevailing concept in modern weightlifting regarding the perfect technique for lifting a weight to the limit is that after completing the lift, the athlete should always go into the deepest squat possible - and the deeper this squat, the more perfect, progressive, rational, and fully-realized the lifter's performance will be.

- L.N. Sokolov, "Some Issues of Improving Weightlifters' Technique." Weightlifting Yearbook, Moscow, 1982, p. 25.

I won't go into the deep squat during the snatch here, but a deep squat for the clean during the second competitive lift - the clean & jerk - does have one undeniable advantage.

This advantage lies in the fact that, with the proper physical skill and psychological preparedness, an athlete can catch a maximum weight on the clean in a squat position with a fairly high degree of reliability. However, after this, the athlete still needs to rise from the deep squat and then perform the clean & jerk.

And so, due to the need to perform all these very labor-intensive lifting phases following the chest-catch in the squat, the deep descent has one rather significant drawback. This drawback is that the lower the squat, the less height it has, the more effort the lifter must expend to rise from that position, lifting both himself and the weight.

Proponents of maximum-depth squats sometimes claim that the loss of height during the power clean is insignificant, since the full squat is supposedly designed for shock absorption. However, the shock absorption of human tissue is hopelessly inferior in all respects, including elasticity and basic absorption.

Moreover, attempts to maximize the elasticity of the knee muscles and ligaments are simply dangerous. As for the chemical energy released for a split second in the muscles during stretching, according to science, its amount van come to no more than 5% of the total potential energy lost by the lifter and the apparatus during the process. It's no wonder that powerlifters, when performing maximum squats, always practice, firstly, only slow movements, and secondly, only partial movements - that is, by all accounts, "inelastic" movements.

But an athlete's strength, as we know, is not limited.

The more energy expended on lifting the weight to the chest,

the less energy left over for lifting it from the chest.

All this raises legitimate doubts about the current prevailing opinion that sinking into the deepest possible squat is a sign of perfect technique, a sign of its rationality, and the greatest efficiency in terms of the lifter's energy expenditure.

It is obvious that the lifter would have retained a significantly greater reserve of strength for lifting the weight from the chest and, accordingly, could have counted on a higher result in this lift (or at least on greater reliability in the performance) if, after the explosion, he had gone into a higher and, naturally, more economical squat than is widely accepted today.

What should be the objectively optimal depth that will allow the bar to be caught on the chest with a high degree of reliability - and at the same time lose only the minimum of altitude it gained after being set in motion?

A comparison of several empirical data points leads to the following conclusion: to confidently clean a maximum weight, a lifter with sufficient skill can easily limit themselves to a depth of descent that is practically equal to their individual depth of descent during the jerking phase. In other words, if a lifter is accustomed to pushing a maximum weight from the chest with a split kick of a certain height, then this lifter can master lifting the same weight to the chest - that is, in a position of the same height.

Two facts support this conclusion:

First, the vertical velocity of the weight at the end of the takeoff is practically equal to the velocity of the weight at the end of the delivery for most modern weightlifters.

Second, the weight must travel a generally identical vertical distance to the fixation points, both after the takeoff (figure 1) and after the delivery (figure 3).

Preliminary fixation - on the chest, in a position ready to rise from the chest (figure 2); and final fixation - on the athlete's arms straightened upwards after rising from the split (figure 4).

The first fact is not surprising; after all, both during the initial stage and during delivery, the acceleration of the bar is carried out by practically the same muscles of the legs.

The fact that the bar must travel the same vertical distance to the fixation points after both the launch and the delivery is even more indisputable. Because this distance in both cases is equal to the length of the lifter's straightened arm (upward or downward).

Now, in order to demonstrate the logic that leads me to the conviction about the reality of a reliable clean of a maximum weight in a shallow squat, I will compare both of the facts just noted above; first within the framework of an analysis of the structure of lifting a maximum weight after the end of the drive, and then within the framework of an analysis of the structure of lifting the same weight after the end of the takeoff.

During the push press, after the initial thrust, the bar travels from the lifter's shoulders to the top of the final position (a distance, as noted, equal to the length of the lifter's straightened arms) as follows . . .

The first part of this distance is traveled, or rather flows upward, almost purely by inertia.

The second part of the lift, the remainder, is accomplished by lifting the bar from a squat position. This squat position is typically not very deep - like a medium or fairly high split or squat. I'd like to point out that this lifting pattern, which involves entering a shallow squat position like a high or medium split squat has long been established and doesn't raise any particular objections from most experts.

What is the structure of a lift of the same weight after the power position - during the clean? After the power position, the bar must travel upwards to arms' length - although in this case the path from the wrist of the straightened arms holding the bar at the end of the power position to the shoulder, in the intermediate position on the chest (that is, the position from which the lifter prepares for the rest of the push.).

I repeat: in this case the bar must also travel a distance equal to arms' length, only now extended downwards rather than upwards. The first part of the distance is also covered by the bar as it flies upward by inertia. This rise, which of course is equal in height to the bar's after launch. After all, objects thrown with the same speed fly to exactly the same height.

Consequently, the rest of the way to the intermediate fixation position on the chest - equal, of course, to the similar rest of the way in the stage of lifting from the chest - a bar of maximum weight can also be moved by lifting it from a squat, equal in height to the same shallow and, as I noted, not causing any problems to the squat or split dip that the athlete uses when lifting the bar from the chest.